


The Edge of Something

by ashesandhoney



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sex Magic, Shiro has Magic, slow self indulgent sex scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 08:20:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11157963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: In which Shiro has some kind of magical ability and Allura has some kind of Altean mating cycle and there are jokes about Hogwarts letters and bowling and a very slow building, cuddling and self indulgent sex scene.





	The Edge of Something

Edge of Something

 

Shiro looked up as she came into the room. He let his gaze linger as she crossed the space to him. She was unsettlingly graceful right up to the point that she made a grimace and then spun to drop herself down beside him in a wave of fluttering fabric. The sigh and the way she slumped made her seem both younger and more human than she usually did. Usually she deserved descriptions like ethereal but right now, she just looked cranky.

"Good day?" he asked.

She muttered something back. An annoyed sound that wasn't really an answer but told him everything he needed to know. She held herself together so carefully through everything. It was impressive to compare this person he saw when her walls were down with the person she was the rest of the time. Allura was usually calm and collected and perfectly self contained. Then the doors would close and they would be alone and she would complain or grumble like anyone else. She was letting him see past the perfect Princess to see the person behind it a little bit at a time.

He dropped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a half hug. Her body was warm and she always smelled so damn good. She leaned into the touch and slouched down to settle against his side. He rested his cheek against the top of her head. Kissing her forehead crossed his mind but he stopped himself from doing it. That was on the other side of the line.

There was definitely a line.

He wasn’t quite sure where it was but it was there waiting for him to trip over it and make a fool of himself.

This was still too new. The easy way she melted into these moments of touch didn't quite translate the way his overactive imagination wanted them to. It had snuck up on him. One day, he was questioning whether she was flirting during a training session and the next, she was doing things like this. When had she started leaving her hand on his arm when she talked? When had she first rested her head on his shoulder and laughed him? It had happened in increments so slow that he was drowning in it before he had registered that it had started.

He was drowning but there was definitely a line.

A line that they didn't discuss.

Moments like this made him want to demand an explanation or a category. Anything to go on to either fuel or crush the stupid little hope in his chest. It kept growing but it was so precarious when he knew nothing about how her culture behaved with their friends or their – he cut that thought off because it would be better if he didn’t even imagine it.

"Are all Alteans this cuddly or is it just you?" He asked.

"We don't cuddle strangers," she said.

"Ok."

Her response didn’t help. He wanted to push it. He wanted to demand to know what she wanted but instead he stayed quiet and let her pick up his hand and play with his knuckles. It might be normal for Alteans to curl up together like this but it was starting to make him crazy. It had been far, far too long since he had had a chance to be this close to someone else. He wanted so much more than she was offering but he was so grateful for this much that jeopardizing it with too many questions was a kind of idiocy he wasn't willing to risk.

The silence stretched and he held onto her as she stroked his fingers. She always smelled nice, it was something indefinable but calmed him down even on his worst days. When he was already relaxed, the smell of her hair was enough to shave every rough edge off the world. He closed his eyes and tried to think of this as sweet and kind. This wasn’t a promise of things to come. She wasn’t offering him anything. That was fine. IT was good.

“Tell me about your day,” he said. Talk to me and distract me because I am thinking about the texture of your skin was what he meant.

"I'm headed into season and it's making me cranky," Allura said.

"That's a ... um ... girl thing?" He asked.

"Yes, it's a girl thing. Do humans do it too?"

"I think so, if we are talking about the same thing."

"I've never had to do it before," she said.

"Why?"

"You can take medicine that will reduce it, we have healing pods and an otherwise fully stocked pharmacy but no suppressants."

"Stocked by a man?" Shiro suggested.

"Whomever he was, he was an idiot," she said.

Shiro reached up to pat the side of her head. He had meant it as a joke but she cuddled into him a little closer. He sighed and turned a bit so it could become a hug. She moved with him and her arms came around his chest. She rearranged herself until she had her head on his shoulder and her knees over his lap. She was already dominating his every thought before she picked up his hand again and started stroking his fingers. He looked down at her and her eyes were closed. He couldn't tell whether or not she was playing with him on purpose or if his overactive imagination was turning this into something it wasn't.

It was better if he remembered that she was just cranky and as touch starved as he was. It wasn't anything more than that.

"Can I do an Altean thing to you?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure," he said. He would let her do anything she wanted to him and he would thank her for it. This thing had taken over his thoughts to the point that he liked it when she beat the hell out of him with a staff. That she grinned at him each time she took him down on the training room floor didn’t help matters. She would help him up and hold his hand a little longer than was strictly necessary. Maybe. Maybe she was just being nice.

He pushed those thoughts away and watched her fingers on his. She held his hand in both of hers and it was very effective at pushing out all the other thoughts. He was giving up on rationality. He was pretty sure she was not playing the game he wanted her to be playing but he wasn't able to care any more. He closed his eyes and let himself imagine the fantasy.

The first tremor climbed his arm and made him shiver. It was like an electric shock but drawn out until it was slow and smooth. It didn’t hurt but it felt like it should. Anything that deep should hurt. His breathing stopped until the rush of sensation had tapered off. He couldn't open his eyes. He couldn't think straight. It really hadn’t hurt but it had been so close to the pain line that it left him breathing hard.

“Ok,” was all he could say aloud.

“Is it?”

“Is it what?”          

“Ok? I won't do it if you don't like it.”

“I'm ok, do whatever you want.”

She laughed at him. Low and musical and under his ear. He lifted his chin so that he could pull her in closer and set his chin on top of her head. She resettled into the new position and sent another bolt of slow, heavy electricity up his nerves. It left him feeling warm and strange. Like his body was the wrong size. This time she didn't let it fizzle away. This time it was a long stroke up and then another back down.

Shiro dropped his head down so he could bury his face against her hair as it built again. Electric but soft edged and warm. Smooth and elastic and liquid and it left him struggling to control the urge to shiver or moan. His whole body responded to it. He could feel whatever she was doing in his toes and finger tips and along every inch of skin. He had had sex that wasn’t this good. Maybe he’d never done anything that felt this good. He had somehow gotten his face pressed in against her throat.

"I didn't think humans could do this," she said.

"This is incredible," he whispered.

"You shouldn't be able to do this," she said again.

"I'm not doing anything. This is all you."

"No, it's not," she insisted and flipped his hand over to run a finger up his palm and make him shiver again, "That is just me but this," she did it again and the sensation climbed his arm and sunk in deeper, "That only works if you've got some magic to feed back into it.”

“I can't even do coin tricks,” he said with a shrug. “I definitely don't have magical abilities.”

“Yes, you do. Push back.”

He frowned at her. He wanted to drop the conversation. It was setting his teeth on edge for reasons he couldn't quite find the words for. The look she gave him told him that he wasn't going to get that wish. She was intent on this. The only way he was going to get out of the conversation was to walk away and even then she'd just follow him. Besides, he didn't want to get up. He liked having her snuggled in at his side too much.

“Humans don't have magic,” he said.

“Stop arguing and do it. I can feel it. Arguing this isn't any less ridiculous than trying to convince me that you don't have hair,” she said.

The galra arm could do magic but tht wasn’t him. Magic had been a tool of battle, a strange alien thing, something other and inexplicable. He’d never tried to make sense of it. He didn’t try to think about the metal hand and what it could do or Allura’s abilities or the Balmera or any of the rest of it. There was too much to deal with and there was only so much he could hold in his mind at once. Maybe he should have paid more attention. Allura fed him a little bit more magic and he forgot the urge to argue or question for a few moments. He forgot everything but the rush of sensation.

“Pay attention,” she said.

The soft flow of magic got sharp enough to shake him out of the haze.

He did push back then.

On instinct, more than anything else.

It hurt and it was far too deep.

He wanted it to stop.

No.

Needed it to stop.

Now.

She hadn't done anything stronger than elbowing him in the ribs. The logical part of his mind knew that. He didn’t need it explained. It hadn’t been that bad but even as he knew that, another part of his mind was panicking and dredging up painful emotions that weren't attached to memories. Pain and fear and a kind of bone deep helplessness that made him want to throw punches and arm himself against it. It was like surfacing from a perfect dream to find the world falling apart at the seams.

When he got a hold of himself, he was breathing too hard and there was space between them. He wasn't sure who had moved. She was perched near the arm of the sofa and he was halfway standing. He stumbled and straightened and tried to shake out the flight or fight response that was still pounding through his blood. Her eyes were on him. He sat back down, slow and far away from her.

“I should have warned you before I did that,” she said.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked. He had lost that moment. He didn’t know what he had done in those few seconds between the start of the pain and the moment when he opened his eyes again.

“I'm fine,” she said.

“I hurt you.”

“I told you to push me out, I can’t very well argue that you did.”

“How bad?” he asked reaching out for her.

“I’m fine,” she said a little more strongly.

She held out her hands and waited for him to take them and pull her back towards him. She sat down in his lap again, straddling his knees and he frowned up at her. He touched her cheek and tried to see if there was any evidence of her being in pain. The magic had receded again for him, nothing hurt but he didn’t know what he had done to her. Had he done something with magic? Had he hit her? Which one would be worse? He ran his hands up her arms and she met his frown with a smile. He mustn’t have hit her. Good. Thank fucking god for that.

“Do you want to try again?” she asked.

“No.”

“Please? I won’t hurt you again. I won’t do anything surprising. I promise.”

“Why do you want to?”

"Do you know that feeling when you've been along for too long and you start to forget what it's like to talk to other people? Or when you've done nothing but work and something makes you laugh and you realize that it has been forever since you last giggled at anything?"

"Yeah," he said. He understood that. Deeply.

"It's like that. Coran can't use the magic, not all Alteans can, and there's no one else. It's not meant to be used alone. To do something like healing the Balmera alone is unthinkable. I shouldn't have even tried. I wouldn’t have but – never mind," Allura watched him with soft eyes, "I thought I'd never get to do something like this again. I don't even remember the last time... before."

Shiro wasn't sure he'd ever seen her look like this before. There was pain in her, her expressions would shift sometimes when the topic of Altea or even the Galra empire came up, but she kept it all carefully controlled. Shiro wasn't used to seeing her with her walls down like this. She wanted this strange thing desperately. He would have been happy to write it off but she had never actually asked him for anything before. She had offered the cuddling and the touching and he had accepted it. This was the first thing he could think of where she had asked him for something so directly.

"You need to warn me before everything and I can’t – I would rather you didn’t do whatever that other thing was ever again," he said. He did not want to think too long or too hard about why the sharp thing she had done had made his thoughts shut down and his whole body lock up.

"I can do that. I can be very gentle," she said and a little smile played at her lips.

She was pretty and she was sitting in his lap and she was watching him with an unwavering expression that left him unable to think about anything but her. It made it easy to ignore the other thoughts about pain and feeling like a stranger in his own mind. She looked so damn happy that he had agreed to let her use him as a magical guinea pig. He trusted her not to hurt him.

The smell of her was stronger. Usually it could calm him down but today it was so mixed up in the other feelings that it just made it hard to remember his own name. It was just another piece of the kaleidoscope of too strong emotions and unexpected physical sensations. He was eventually going to say or do something stupid and unwelcome but hopefully she would forgive him for being an idiot when he inevitably ruined it.

He was going to ruin it eventually.

They were just alone enough and just close enough to make him stupid.

They were in a corner of the castle that the others didn't usually use. It was far away from the bunks and the kitchen, down below the bridge. Allura had called it an Officer's Hall at one point but Shiro hadn't asked too many questions. It was basically a break room. It was a nice break room but nothing special. There were a few long sofas, a few desks, a bookshelf full of tablets that only showed information in Altean. It was quiet but it wasn't truly private. Anyone could come through the door at any time.

Allura leaning her head on his shoulder was one thing, Allura sitting in his lap was another.

"What is it?" she asked.

He didn't know how to explain it without bringing to her attention how far past friendly they had come. She was sweet and more comfortable with touching than he was and it probably didn't mean any of the things that his imagination wanted it to mean. Realization dawned on her face just as he started to speak. She drew back, sitting away from him but not standing or leaving.

"I'm over the line," she said.

"This is a little more touching than we usually do," he said. That was safe. Wasn’t it?

"Sorry, season," she said as though it explained everything.

"I maybe don’t understand that," he admitted. He had thought she just meant that her period made her cranky. That made sense to him but maybe it wasn’t what she meant.

"Mating season?" she said and paused, waiting for his response. Whatever his expression did it made her shrug. He wasn’t sure what his expression was doing because his thoughts were stuck on: _oh shit_ and showed no sign of budging in any direction.

Oh shit. Everything was more manageable if he didn’t know that that was even a possibility.

“Not a thing that humans do?" she asked and he shook his head because he was going to say something absurd if he tried for words. What did that mean? What did that mean for everything that had happened so far? Was it all some instinct or impulse? Was he overstepping?

She shrugged and continued with a wave of her hand.  "It isn’t a big deal. Right now I'm just irritable and touching everyone seems like a good idea. I've been avoiding Coran because that is not a conversation I want to have. I hugged Keith earlier, he gave me this look like I'd dropped in from Saylo. Oh quizznak, I'm probably going to start to smell. I hope you won't be able to tell but it's embarrassing just in the theory even if humans won’t know. Ugh. There’s a reason that people take the medicine. I am rambling. I can give you more personal space. I'm sorry. You’re going to need to remind me."

She pulled back farther and sat beside him again. That was not what he had wanted but it made it easier to think. He gave her a smile and she returned it. Ok. This was fine. It was a weird alien thing and that didn’t make it any of his business to ask anything else about it. She wasn’t some sort of sex crazed anything. She was just having the alien version of PMS. That was fine. He just needed not to think about it too much and it would be fine.

He didn’t really want the personal space but he understood what she meant by the smell and the distance made it easier. Just talking about it had made her look so mortified that he didn't say a word. That’s why the scent of her hair or her skin or – shit – whatever was bothering him so much. He wasn’t nearly immune to it as she thought he was. Knowing that that was what he was smelling was not helping his distraction problem.

"Ok, Dumbledore, teach me some magic," he said.

"Dumbledore?"

"It sounded better than McGonagall," he said. She was still staring at him blankly so he added, "Characters from a book."

"A book in which someone learns magic?"

"Yes."

"And you're trying to tell me that your species doesn't have magic? You have stories about magic. Folk stories usually have a grain of truth in them," she said.

"If Harry Potter is a folk story full of grains of truth, I think I should be more worried about the dragons than the magic lessons."

"You’re trying to get me to ask questions about it. Stop stalling, give me your hand."

He held it out to her and she took it in both of hers. Damn it but even that was making his heart rate do strange things. He wasn't going to learn anything from her. She could teach him a hundred times and he would forget everything but the details of her. He tried to distract himself from his distraction by trying to figure out if there was any truth to her assertion that humans had magic. Maybe they did. Maybe people who claimed to have psychic powers really could see the future or bend spoons or whatever.

Then again, maybe it was something the Galra did to him.

That made his skin crawl. The arm he could understand. This felt like something stranger. If they could do this, then they could change parts of himself that he couldn't touch or see or comprehend. When Allura had slid that bit of magic up his nerves, it had hit places that shouldn't have existed. That was deeper than that. 

"Could Zarkon's Druids have done this?" he asked in a voice that came out somewhere between flat and terrified.  

"This?"

"Given me this magic you think I have?"

"You definitely have it."

"Fine, ok, but, could it have come from them?"

"No. Maybe. No,” she shook her head and said it again, firmly, “No.”

"You seem pretty sure all of a sudden."

"If Zarkon could give someone Altean abilities, if the ability to channel quintessence through a living being could be granted, he would have done it to himself. He hasn't used that power so I don't believe he has it. This is you. Not them," she said.

"I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse," he said.

"It's a blessing."

"So is surviving the arena, that doesn't mean it doesn't leave me feeling just a bit unsettled."

"A bit unsettled?"

"Yeah."

"This is a good thing. If you don't believe that then try to trust me on it."

"I trust you," he said.

That one comment made her beam at him. She had smiles that would break out of nowhere and this one left him a little dazzled. She held out her hands and he gave her both of his. She sat on the sofa with her feet tucked up under her so she was facing him. He mirrored her so he was sitting crossed legged without having to let go of her hands. Face to face with their feet tucked up on the furniture like little kids.

"Magic is a piece of you. It isn't something you can separate or parcel out or think about separately from every other piece of you. Your fingers and toes, your nose and your knees, lungs and heart and skin and all the rest are as much a piece of you as your magic is," she said.

"That sounds like a rehearsed speech," he said.

"It's something you get taught when you start showing hints of ability when you're a child. It isn't my speech."

"Heart and nose and knees, got it," he said.

"You're not thinking about it," she said.

"I'm more curious about where it came from."

"It comes from your soul, your connection to -" she stopped and frowned.

"To?"

"Altea."

"The closest thing I have to a connection to Altea is that sometimes this girl I know holds my hand," he said.

"So Earth then. Your planet must carry reserves of quintessence."

"All planets do but not everyone has magic."

He was leaning into her and he wasn't sure what response he wanted to hear. Maybe he wanted her to tell him that on second thought, she was wrong and he didn't have any kind of magic at all. Maybe he wanted to hear that there was something about him that the time in the arenas hadn't been able to touch. Maybe he was just another kid who had always wanted a Hogwarts letter and this felt dangerously close to getting it.

"Maybe it doesn't matter," she said.

"Why?" he asked.

"Not everything needs an explanation, Shiro. Sometimes things are just true even if they can't be neatly explained."

"Ok."

He let it go. There would be time for figuring it all out later but right now, he wanted her to smile at him again. The concerned frown that she was giving him was no where near that smile. She didn't like not having the answers any more than he did but arguing wasn't going to get them any closer to an explanation. He pulled on her hands enough that she leaned forward and he set his forehead against hers.

Forehead to forehead was nice. She smelled so damn good.

Too close. Bad idea. Back off.

He didn’t.

She relaxed the annoyance leaking back out of her posture.

"We'll figure it out later. You can do little magic experiments on the rest of the crew to test for human magics and we'll figure it out. Just not right now," he said.

"What do you want to do right now?" she asked.

Nothing repeatable.

He couldn't say that or any of the actual things so he said, "That magic petting thing."

"This one?" she asked and sent a shiver up his arm.

"The other one," he said.

She was giggling at him. It was soft and teasing. They were still leaned together and he had closed his eyes to try and keep from noticing how close she was. It wasn't working and the laugh didn't help. She was probably the kind of person who could laugh through a kiss without losing any of the intensity. That thought was not helping any of his attempts at keeping himself together.

"Allura," he started but didn't know what he wanted to say and the sentence fell apart before it had even started which made her laugh harder.

"Never mind," he said and dropped his head down to her shoulder to hide his expression where she couldn't see it.

Her hand came up and patted his head. Time stretched and she was playing with his hair but he didn't know how long it had been going on. It was not that magic thing but it was nice. Normal nice. Definitely flirting nice.

He turned into her, resting his cheek on her shoulder and letting his nose graze her neck. There was a fraction of a reaction. She paused and straightened but it only lasted a moment before she was stroking his hair again. Not fiddling with the ends or patting his head in mock sympathy. She threaded her fingers through it and stroked it back from his face. He gave up on trying to keep his head together.

She smelled like home but it wasn't a scent he could break down. Something floral. Maybe something like baking. But also nothing like any of that.

"You need to set some boundaries," Shiro said.

"Boundaries?" she asked.

"What are we doing here?"

"Practicing magic."

"Are we?" he asked. He let his hand, his real hand, find the back of her neck and hold her a little closer. "Because I've never taken a class on anything with quite this much... of this."

"Attendance at lessons would be improved if there was."

"I'd fail every test."

"As would I."

Hearing her admit that was like letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding. She was closer again and that had sounded so much like an invitation. He reached and caught her knee, pulling her back onto his lap. She let him guide her and settled back into place with her knees on either side of his. Their eyes caught and held and she was still smiling like she couldn't quite shake it. 

"Do you still trust me?" she asked.

"Always," he said.

Her fingers slid up under the hem of his shirt and he forgot how to breathe. She didn't take it off and he was too startled to do it for her. Her hands settled on his stomach, just above his hips. Soft skin and narrow fingers and not nearly enough contact. He didn't look away from her. She was studying him. He tried to force a smile past the surprise and all the other things he was trying not to think about. Once he'd started to smile, it broke into a grin. A stupid grin. Too big. Too silly. She leaned in to touch her forehead against his again but pulled back before he could kiss her.

Before he could complain, she was playing with the magic and he just gave up and let that be the only thing he thought about. It had been incredible when she'd been running a finger up and down his arm. It was something entirely more intense like this. It built in the pit of his stomach and pushed up and out over the rest of his body.

When he came back to himself enough to open his eyes, his head was tilted back and she was running a finger along his lower lip. He was second guessing his first assessment. He had never had sex that was as good as what she was doing to him. With that thought, he was suddenly worried he'd really embarrassed himself. His cock was straining against his clothes buthe was too hard for her to have pushed him over the edge. She was sitting far enough back and her hands were high enough that she probably couldn't tell. Thank god for small mercies.

"Did you enjoy that?" she asked.

"It was awful," he said with a half smile.

"Liar."

"Mm, maybe."

"I could get used to watching you gasp and squirm."

"When you say it like that, it sounds so much less dignified," he said.

"Less dignified than what?"

"Just about anything else you could have said."

She just laughed at him.

He looped his arms around her waist and flipped them over so she was lying on her back on the sofa. She grabbed hold of him and looked up with wide eyes. He had landed on top of her too high to keep the erection a secret but it felt like they were too far into this for it to be a surprise any more.

Maybe he was wrong.

She looked really damn surprised.

Shit.

"Or I'll get up," he said.

She grabbed hold of his hips and held him down. Too hard. She was so strong and she seemed to have forgotten it for a minute.

"Or I'll stay right here," he said.

"That's a better idea," she said.

Shiro settled down, pressing into her and getting an arm around her waist so he could hold onto her as he nuzzled her cheek and down her neck. A piece of him, a very hard and insistent piece of him, wanted to rush this but he was trying very hard to ignore it. He wanted this to last as long as it could. He kissed her neck right where it disappeared into her collar and then worked his way back up to under her ear as she tilted her head back and melted into him a little bit. She wasn't playing with the magic any more, she was just holding him close and relaxing into him.

"Fuck," he said.

"What?"

"How much of this is a season thing? I mean, how much are you going to regret this when you wake up tomorrow morning?"

"Are you angling to marry me and usurp my throne?" she asked into his ear.

"What? No. No. That is not-"

She interrupted him, "Are you one of those people who turns sex into a baby making project?"

"Uh? No."

"Will I still be able to trust you in the morning?"

"Yeah. Yes. Of course."

"Then I'm not going to regret it. I would have gotten embarrassed without the season thing but a mating season doesn't make you stupider than you usually are, it just makes you crankier and more easily aroused."

"Are you aroused then?" he asked.

"Yeah. Stars. Yes."

"I'd like to go somewhere with a bed and a door that locks."

"That means getting up."

"It means not having to worry about Coran or Lance or someone else opening that door and wanting us to do something else."

"Mine or yours? Never mind, mine. You sleep in a bunk room, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Mine's bigger," she said.

 

Her room was indeed bigger than his. On another day, he might have been impressed with it. He'd started to think of Altean design as blue and white and clean and empty. Allura had fabrics everywhere. Pillows and drapes and splashes of colour and windows on the wall that played a video of a field of wildflowers on a sunny afternoon that was so real that they distracted him for a few seconds. Only a few. She had kept a hand on him since they'd stood up and it was enough to hold his attention through any storm. Fancy windows got about three seconds of attention before she pushed her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and knocked out other thoughts.

He turned around and caught her around the waist to pull her in tight and push her back against the wall beside the door. She gave him another one of those surprised looks that softened into a smile. He kissed her. She gasped and her hands came up to catch him by the shoulders. There was a moment - a moment he was very aware of - when he thought she would push him away but instead her arms looped around his neck and held on gently enough to let him have control of the moment. He smiled into her mouth and then kissed her harder.

She was clumsy and he could still feel how startled she was in her body language but she was holding on and kissing him back. He caught her jaw in his hand and slowed everything down. He pressed her back, his hips against hers because they were almost exactly the same height. He had his eyes shut as he explored her and her reactions. He needed a master list of what made the tension worse and what made her start to relax. He wanted to be very sure that she enjoyed every moment. When he pulled back, she was blinking up at him, looking a little lost.

"That was a very human thing," she said.

"Was it?" he asked with a smile.

"We don't do that," she said and her eyes were serious.

Shit.

"I will stop if you tell me too," he said.

Anxiety climbed up his spine. He had misread her. It had felt like she was surprised but interested and if he couldn't read her in this, anything else was going to be dangerous as hell. He was going to overstep and he was going to ruin all of it.

"If I want you to stop, I'll remember that,” she said.

He relaxed again and leaned in to the space just before another kiss and waited for her to be the one to close it. She hesitated for a moment. Maybe she expected him to make the first move again but he needed to be very sure and in that moment, he wasn’t. He was full of questions and concerns and rampant desires.

When she did kiss, she did it with a hand fisted into his collar and her teeth grazing his lower lip. He smiled and kissed her again. The smile kept resurfacing each time they broke apart or when he took a moment to breathe. She took it to mean that he'd liked the teeth and he should have told her to stop but each little nip or drag made his heart beat pick up speed.

"Too many clothes," he whispered into her ear when the kiss hit a lull.

She looked at him and before he could tell whether or not it was the same startled look as the time before she was smirking and nodding and slipping her hands up under the hem of his shirt. He had been picturing her naked but it was his shirt that was disappearing far too quickly. He was a mess of scars. He didn't even remember how he had gotten most of them. He hadn't thought though whether or not he was ready for her to see it, to judge or pity or question, before it was happening.

His shirt was gone. She was still pinned to the wall. His hips were pressed into hers and while it was an illusion and he knew it was an illusion, it still felt like he was the one holding her in place. She was twice as strong as he was, easily twice as strong maybe more, so if she was staying where he had put her, she was doing it by her choice. That made it better. He leaned into her. Pressed himself against her. She stayed where he put her and played her hands up and down his arms as she did.

"Does it bother you?" she asked.

"It?"

"These," she traced her fingers down the scar tissue that ran from his collar bone out toward his shoulder. Her fingers fit into the spaces until they spread out at his arm. Claw marks probably, from something bigger than an Altean princess. He didn't remember what had happened.

"Sometimes," he admitted.

"Scars mean you survived it."

"Lived through it," he said.

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"I'm not the person I was before."

She nodded as though that made sense before she said, "I've only known the person that you are now. I can tell you that he's someone to be proud of."

Shiro didn't have a response for that. He wasn't sure how he felt about who he was and who'd been and the entire question made his head spin but she meant it. Her gaze was soft and unwavering and she meant it and he was grateful for that if nothing else. He kissed her again. Soft. Soft and slow and when she tried to kiss him back harder, he caught her chin and kept it slow. She let him do that too.

"Bed," she suggested.

"You," he said.

"Me?"

"Clothes."

Sentences that were any more complex than that were beyond him.

"Clothes?" she asked.

He forced himself to find the rest of the words.

"I want you to take off your clothes, Allura," he said.

"You almost never call me Allura," she said.

"As much as this tiny crew has a chain of command, you are above me on it. It isn't proper to call a superior officer by their first name," he said.

"But I like the way you say my name," she said.

"Tonight, you're Allura."

"Tomorrow will I be Princess again?"

"If you want to be."

"I don't. Not when we're like this."

"Allura," he said again.

She leaned up and kissed him. Just as softly.

"Clothes, take them off," he said again when the kiss released him.

"It'll be easier if you do it, everything laces and buttons in the back," she said.

Taking off her clothes was enough of an annoyance to make him wonder why she ever dressed like that to begin with. The dress was made of far more pieces than it needed to be and it was held together with a complicated system of ribbons and buttons and overlapping pieces. Each time he found skin, at her shoulder first then at her hip, it felt like an achievement. He paused to kiss each new corner of her he found and then run his hands over it while she watched him. She was always watching him. She never got distracted or zoned out of what was going on.

He shook her hair loose and let hair pins fall on the floor. He pushed off something that existed somewhere between a corset and a bra and Allura sucked in a gasp of air as it came away that made him pause to run his hands up her back and around her ribs. There was an undershirt so he wasn't touching skin as he slid his hands up to her breasts but neither of them cared very much. She pressed into the touch and he finally pulled her away from the wall and backed her towards the bed, tugging off any last bits of clothing that were left as they went.

He had started so carefully and gently but that was gone.  

Her knees hit first and she lost her balance and sat down. He was still wearing his pants but he was too hard for them to do much good at hiding it. She ran her fingers along the shape of his erection with a questioning raise of her eyebrows that on any other day, he would have been desperate to understand. She was barely touching him and it made his heart beat faster. He was too distracted by the possibilities of her body to worry much about the possibilities of his own.

He knelt down before her and caught her knees to pull them wide. He saw the moment of self consciousness cross her face and he sat up on his knees to kiss her again. He didn't let go of her knees as he kissed her. He kept her spread and held at the very edge of the bed and kissed her hard. A very human thing. She was startled by it but answered the kiss after a moment’s hesitation.

"You are perfect," he said into her mouth and then dropped back down again. The bed was high enough that it was comfortable to rest his cheek against her thigh while kneeling between her legs. She was breathing a little hard as she watched him.

"If Alteans don't kiss, you probably don't do this either do you?" he said.

"Do what?" she asked.

"This," he leaned in and ran the flat of his tongue across the intimate folds of her body. She tensed but didn't pull away. He kept his eyes on her and she held his gaze. Startled maybe? Or maybe the expression was curiosity or interest? He was still worried that he couldn’t read her and the more worried he was, the worse he was getting. He pulled back and waited but didn’t get up. One his knees between her legs was exactly where he wanted to be.

"No, we definitely don't do that," she said.

"If you say it, I’ll stop," he said.

"I don't want you to stop."

"If you change your mind, tell me."

"I won't."

He sat up higher on his knees and caught her face in both hands so he could kiss her mouth again. Expressions could leave him confused but that was about as unambiguous as it could get. He pulled back just far enough to see her expression. He slipped one hand, the human hand, down from her neck while he kept the other in place to keep her right where she was. She was smiling at him as his hand trailed down past her collarbone to her breasts and then lower.

He had been nervous before but being able to see the look in her eyes up close was helping smooth out his anxiety. She knew what she wanted and she kept smiling like she was on the edge of laughter. He kissed her again, his hand pausing at her waist as he got distracted trying to chase the taste of that near laugh. She was a very fast learner and this time when she kissed him back it was soft and curious and they found a balance that felt natural and easy and right.

He pulled back again and her mouth was still a little bit open, her lips flushed and her eyes a touch too wide. He wanted this to be slow. He wanted to be able to break it down into details that he could remember and file away. He wanted to know exactly what she liked and exactly what it did to her. And yet, pushing her back on the bed and just letting instinct and impulse take the lead was desperately appealing when she looked at him like that. He tabled that idea. Later. There would be time for that later.

Slow.

Nose to nose. She was all he could see. Her eyes were the colour of summer skies and this close he could see the scatter of freckles across her nose and cheeks that were just a shade lighter than the rest of her skin. Even in his peripheral vision, all he could see was her hair. He'd stayed still too long and her expression was starting to shift into questions and concern.

"Patience, Princess," he said before she could say a word.

"I'm out of patience. I have been patient for months, I don't have any left," she said.

He blinked. That threw him off.

"Months?"

She glanced away and then back and the moment that they had been suspended in was suddenly gone. His hand was still on her waist and she was still close enough that it was hard to look away from her but they were a step farther back from the edge as she shrugged.

"I thought you didn't like me," she said.

"I like you," was an inane thing to say but it had escaped from his stupid mouth before he had thought about it.

"I'm starting to figure that out," she said tapping the end of his nose with a fingertip. "But for so long you would train with me and work with me and just sit with me and I couldn't tell."

"Me neither," he said.

"I like you," she said.

"What do you think we should do about that?" he asked her as he let his hand slip a little lower on her hip. Her mouth fell open and that startled but very interested expression was back on her face. When she spoke, her tone was intensely formal and did not match the near hunger on her face.

"I don't know. Do you have any ideas?" she asked.

"So many, you'll have to tell me if they're any good," he said.

He gave her another kiss but kept this one quick so he could pull back and watch her face as his hand finally finished its path down her body to the space between her legs. He ground his palm against her hard enough to make her mouth fall open. She pushed against him to keep the contact when he started to pull back. Maybe she wasn't so hard to read after all. He kissed his way across her cheek and down to her neck as he switched to his fingers and she gave up trying to rush him and just relaxed. He wasn't really trying to get her off, not yet. He was too distracted by how fantastic her skin smelled and all the possible places he could put his mouth.

Her hands were on him as he kissed his way along her shoulder and then back to her neck again. She hummed and leaned into him. Her hands skated down his back, first just exploring then tracing scar tissue. That nearly pulled him out of the entire moment but she smelled like sex and home and the nearness of her was wrapped around him so tightly that it was hard to care whether or not he looked like he'd been torn to pieces and stitched back together by some alien Frankenstein. He pushed the thoughts out and let the feel of her fingers be more important.

His fingers were still tracing patterns between her legs but he was doing a terrible job of pleasuring her. She was wet and warm but kept shifting her hips to chase touches that he wasn't ready to follow through on yet. He made a silent promise to make it up to her and let himself have a few more minutes of indulging in the rest of her first. Her breasts were very distracting.

"Shiro?" she asked.

"Mm?" he said without lifting his head.

"Are you trying to drive me mad?"

"Yes."

"It's working."

"Good to hear that at least one plan is coming together like its supposed to."

"You're not funny."

He laughed and pulled himself up to kiss her again, "I'm hilarious," he whispered into her mouth.

"You're not," she said.

"Fine, I guess we need to find something else that I'm good at," he said.

"Like what?"

Neither of them had pulled back and he could feel her lips move when she talked.

"Bowling?" he said.

"I don't know what that is but I can tell from your tone that it was a joke. I am very sure that bowling is not one of the things I want you to do," she said.

He laughed and dropped away from her so he was sitting back on the floor between her legs again. She was still Allura so she somehow managed to look elegant sitting on the edge of the bed naked with her legs spread and her mouth open and a trail of wet marks across her chest. She watched him with a little frown. He was almost giddy. She looked so frustrated but he was just delighted to have her looking at him like that at all. His stupid grin wouldn't go away and her near scowl faded as she looked at him.

He was still on the brink of laughing when he leaned in and licked her. She hadn't been nearly this wet the first time he'd done this. If she smelled like sex, she tasted like something stronger than that. The hormones or pheromones or whatever her body was pumping out, it was enough to make Shiro's head spin. He settled in a little closer and attempted to make up for the terrible fingering he'd given her while he was distracted.

She was touching his hair and his shoulders as he experimented with her. Her fingers flexed in his hair when she liked something. He finally got a breathy near moan out of her when he sucked hard. Sliding his fingers inside her got him another one. She was quiet but didn't make him guess about what she liked. Once he had her figured out it was a very short trip to making her shudder and twist and gasp out his name.

The gasp was worth chasing. He caught her around the waist to keep her where he could reach her and didn’t stop until he’d gotten it again. The second time, she said his name somewhere between a gasp and a plea as her hand tightened in his hair hard enough to hurt before it fell away and she collapsed back onto the bed.

He pulled back to find her leaning back, propped up on her elbows, watching him.

He might have made some inappropriately timed joke about bowling but she didn't give him a chance to. She was up off the bed and reaching for him before he'd registered that she was moving. It wasn't elegant. She stumbled a little and he was sitting on the floor which made it more awkward. She threw her arms around him and he managed to get her settled on his lap with her legs around his waist and her hair in his face and her body pressed in against his as tightly as she could get it.

"You ok?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"You seem to be freaking out a little bit."

"No."

"Really?"

"You were just too far away. It's better now. This is better."

Shiro wrapped his arms all the way around her and rocked her back and forth until her heart rate had come back down and she wasn't holding onto him quite so tightly. He wanted to follow this up with questions. Was she freaking out? Had he hurt her somehow? Was it some Altean instinct thing? Was she just more aggressive in her cuddling than most people?

“You’re sure you’re ok?” was as close to any of those questions as he could get.

“I am fine, truly.”

She spoke in a steady voice but she didn’t let go or loosen her hold. He ran his hand up and down her bare back, letting his fingers trace the definition of the muscles and the feeling of her spine. She cuddled into it and let her hands wander as she calmed back down. She started running drops of magic down the nerves of his back as he held her. It felt almost like water. Her finger tip brushed along his skin and the little trill of power ran down, getting weaker and weaker until it vanished and she started another. If she could focus enough on the magic to do this, she probably was as fine as she claimed to be. 

"Bed?" he suggested through the fuzzy warmth of the magic.

"Pants," she said.

"What?"

"You're still wearing pants. They need to go."

He laughed.

"That wasn't a joke," she said.

"Let me up and I will take off anything you want me too but it's gonna be hard to get them off while I'm sitting on the floor with a lap full of naked princess," he said.

He was still laughing. It was hard to stop laughing. She stood up and he let his hands trail down her legs as she stepped away from him and held out a hand. She hadn't struck him as the type of person to be perfectly at ease while naked but apparently she was. Maybe that wasn’t surprising. She could look commanding in a night gown and bathrobe. He reached up and caught her hand. He let her pull him to his feet and kept hold of her hand as he leaned in and kissed her.

She tucked her fingers into his waistband and he forgot how to breathe. There was no where else to look but at her. The universe had narrowed down to the space between them. She was everything. All the rest of the world was being washed away. It would still be there in the morning but for a few hours, he could pretend that this was all there was. Just the two of them and a quiet room. This was the most at ease that he had felt in a very long time. He rested his head against hers and breathed in the smell of her as she undid his pants.

She had her eyes down on what her fingers were doing and he took the opportunity to stare at her again. He knew what she was doing, he wasn't so lost in watching her face that he had forgotten that her fingers where pushing his pants down past his hips. Her fingers dragged along skin, hooking into his underwear so she could push everything away at once. When it was done, he kicked the pants the rest of the way off and caught her around the waist.

"Shiro," she said.

He lifted her up off her feet and held onto her for a moment, turning them around in a slow circle. He liked having her close. Maybe her aggressive cuddling was contagious. He was too self conscious for standing naked while she looked at him with those curious intelligent eyes. She was going to find something that she didn't want to see if she kept studying him like that.

He was not worthy of an inch of her.

He knew that but she seemed to have overlooked it.

"Allura," he said in answer. He said her name like a promise. I am not good enough to be here with you but I will do anything and everything in my power to make up the gap. 

"Put me down," she said.

He laughed and backed her up so that when he did as she asked, he dumped her out onto the bed.

It didn't bother her. She caught herself so that she landed, sitting up as though she had planned it. She slid up the bed. She was moving away from him without losing the eye contact.

"Come along, then," she said.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked.

"Come find out."

He laughed again. She was so easily confident that she chased away the worst of his self consciousness simply by existing. Surrounded by pastel blankets and pillows in bright colours, the brown of her skin was richer, the blue of her eyes was brighter. There were hangings around the bed that made everything seem more private and secret and safe. This was her space and she looked so pleased to have him in it.

How could he doubt something that she was so sure of? Even if that something was his own pounding heart and broken body.  

He followed her up onto the bed, his hands finding her body with every possible movement. He grazed his knuckles along her ankle and then let his palm brushed her knee as he crawled up towards her. She got still as he got closer but her eyes were still bright and steady. She leaned back as he crawled over her and by the time, he was close enough to reach her for a kiss, she was almost lying down.

"You're beautiful," he told her in the moment before their mouths touched.

His hand was in her hair at the nape of her neck, the other one was slipping around her waist so he could hold her tight as he pressed himself down against her body. Her arms came up around his neck and she kissed him back. He shifted against her and she arched her back enough to press her hips up into the touch. Too close, wrong angle, but so close. She shifted again. Seeking the same contact that he needed desperately. He pressed back into it. The angle was still wrong. Her thigh maybe but just being able to touch her this much was good.

"Shiro," she said his name over and over and each time it meant something different.

This time it was a complaint.

"Impatient," he accused her while kissing his way down her neck and wrapping his arms around her a little tighter.

"Shiro," she said again.

He was just as impatient but that she had cracked first made him want to draw the moment out. He let up some of the pressure, not letting go but sliding down so the angle was very wrong and he could suck on the pulse point of her throat as she squirmed against him. He was losing his mind with the promise of her this close.

"Yes, Princess?" he said.

"Shiro."

"Did you want something?"

She swore in his ear and then said, "Please," in a harsh edged whisper.

"Mm," he said.

"Please," she said again.

Teasing her was fun but his self control was not nearly good enough to ignore both the press of her body and the tone of her voice as she pleaded with him. He caught her knee and pushed it wider so he could get his hips in closer to her. This was close enough. This could work. He lifted her knee up so that it was halfway draped over his back and that was all the hint she needed to get both legs up around him.

They hadn't made it under the blankets.

He fumbled around a little bit, trying to get himself in the right place so he could slide into her. He had to grab hold of her hip to keep her still and use his other hand to guide his cock to the right place. It wasn't quite elegant. It only took a second before he didn't care. She was hot and wet and her whole body relaxed into him as he slid down into her. She shifted a bit as he came to rest against her. His hips pressed into hers. Her ankles crossed somewhere behind his back. Her hand at his cheek, his arm around her waist, his mouth on her shoulder. He was going to leave bruises if he wasn't careful.

"Hm?" he said.

Not words. She as too close for words.

"Yes, yes, yes please," she said.

It was only marginally more coherent.

It had been a long time since he had last done this. He had never felt quite so lost in it. He had definitely never done it with a partner who was this much stronger than him. She had a hold of him and he could feel the strength in her. He ran his hand up her thigh. Her muscles were too tight. He kissed her temple then her cheek and then out towards her ear.

"It works better if you let me move a little," he said tapping her knee to let her know exactly what he was talking about.

"Oh," she said.

It took her another moment before she started to loosen up and give him some space. He caught her knees as she started to drop them and rearranged her on the bed. He looked down at her as he experimented with the first few true thrusts. She bit her lip and watched him. She didn't seem to know where to put her hands and he grabbed the nearest one and held onto it as he settled into this. As close as possible. There would be time later for something else but right now close was what he wanted most.

"Promise me that there will be a next time," he said.

"Yes," she said into his ear.

"Next time, you can lead but right now, let me," he said as their bodies fell out of sync again.

Their fingers were laced together and he held them back into the mattress beside her head. Each thrust let him press his body against hers a little harder. She was moving against him and they couldn't find a rhythm that would work. She went still under him when he asked her too and he forced his eyes open to make sure that she wasn't mad about it. Her mouth was open and she looked overwhelmed more than anything else.

"Ok?" he asked.

"Don't stop, stop stopping," she said.

Shiro laughed again, "If you say so."

He hadn't allowed himself many fantasies of this. He hadn't allowed himself many fantasies of her at all and the ones that had crept through when his thoughts wandered too far or when he was falling asleep, all of those he had caught and cut off before they'd gotten this far. But still, he'd imagined it going a little gentler.

Every time he thought that was he was going to fast or too hard and started to pull it back, she would mutter little protests into his neck and try and press back into him.

So, it was hard and fast.

Too fast.

His heart beat was racing in his ears and he was already fighting the edge of self control. They were close together. There was the hard and fast of a dirty movie or the kind of story that got passed around the barracks back at the Garrison until it became a myth. This wasn't that kind of hard and fast. This was tight and close and shared breath and being able to feel every movement and every reaction. Their bodies were pressed together and they barely moved except for his hips and her free hand.

He was closer to the edge than she was.

"I'm going to slow down, trust me," he said.

"Don't slow down. I trust you but don't slow down," she said.

"I'm doing it anyways," he said.

She made that soft sound of complaint into his ear but didn't fight him when he rearranged their bodies so he could get his hand down between them and use his fingers to help him get her where he wanted her. She arched her back and stretched under him as he pulled back. He had only given her as much space as he absolutely needed to reach the place where their bodies came together.

He rubbed slow circles, finding the right place and a slow rhythm that made her squirm more than it pushed him to that orgasm that was hovering far too close. This was gentler. The heavy thrusts that had buried him inside her gave way to deeper longer ones as he got himself back under control and forced her further away from control.

"I'll never doubt you again," she muttered.

"Good," he said.

"Stop sounding so smug," she said.

"I am smug. You're very close to panting." He wasn't much better but that wasn't the point.

"I'm not."

"Yeah, you are."

To make the point, he rubbed a little harder and got a gasp out of her. She slid her hands to his hips and for a moment he thought that was the end of the little argument and she'd lie back and just enjoy it. Instead he'd hit on some competitive impulse and Allura groaned in his ear and then sent a wave of that bone deep magic rippling up his back.

The magic felt different like this. He didn’t have many walls left and it pushed in past everything. Liquid electric pleasure that hit places that weren't meant to be touched. It was running through him like a flood. She had used more than she had before or maybe he was just more receptive to it. He lost his sense of everything for long enough that he blinked his eyes open to find her patting his cheek and frowning at him.

He was still inside her, still hard, and too close to the edge again. His body was still full of shivering after shocks of magic and the nearness of an orgasm that hadn’t come. She was still breathing hard. He pulled back to catch his breath. He regretted it as soon as he slid out of her. He was still too overwhelmed to do anything but lie on top of her and wait for the magic to finish echoing through his body.

"Not fair," he muttered.

"Don't care. Your eyes roll up and you shudder when I do that, I like it," she said.

"Ok," he said.

"Ok?" she asked.

"Fair is fair," he said. Allura frowned at him so he added, "Shudder for me, Princess."

She cracked a smile at that.

He smiled back and then flipped her over. She yelped - it was soft but it was a yelp - but let him push her down on her stomach and spread her knees. She sat up on her elbows like she was watching a movie at a sleepover and looked over her shoulder at him. She was smiling at him as he came closer. He trailed his fingers from her ankle up to her thigh and then higher. She arched for him and muttered something that might have been a complaint or a demand about him going too slowly again.

It was a position he'd never tried before but he liked the way she looked lying down and all spread out for him that asking her to get up on her knees felt like a loss. He settled down over her and she tilted her hips and arched up into his body to make it easier. He could lean over her back and kiss her neck and shoulders. He needed one arm to stay braced but found its way around her waist and between her legs to where he was buried inside her.

She swore very softly as he thrust all the way in and then pulled back and did it again. Once he gave her what she wanted, he wasn't going to be able to last very long so he wanted to draw it out and push her closer to the edge first. She pushed back into him and sighed happily when he thrust harder. Her head was down in the scattered pillows and he couldn't see her face. He waited until she was shifting and breathing hard before he let himself give up the last bits of his own self control.

"Too slow?" he asked.

"Harder is better," she said.

"As you wish, Princess," he said.

She might have had a retort but he picked up speed before she could say it and he got a moan instead. A true moan. Still quiet but it was undoubtedly a moan. He kissed the side of her face because it was all he could reach and kept going. He could have let himself go that fast but pulling her to the edge of this orgasm had taken work and he was going to make sure she came again before he did. Shiro's breathing was uneven and he gave up trying to be as quiet as her and moaned into the crook of her neck.

When it happened, she arched and shuddered and sighed and pulled him down with her as her body clenched tight around him. He collapsed on top of her and for a few minutes they just breathed hard. When he finally got the strength up to roll over, she followed him, tucking herself into his side and pulling his face around so she could demand a kiss. He was breathing hard and she was smiling and it was less of a true kiss and more of two people bumping their mouths together while trying not to laugh or pant.

She pulled back from the mess of a kiss and just rested her forehead against his.

“I want to do that again,” she said.

“Now?”

“Yes but we can wait until later if you need a moment,” she said.

“I’m going to need a few,” he said.

“You’re all flushed and sweaty,” she said.

“Thank for pointing that out,” he said.

“It’s cute.”

“I am too out of it to tease you back right now.”

“That’s cute too.”

“Come here,” he said.

Shiro rolled into her, grabbing her around the waist and holding her tightly. He kept rolling, pinning her to the bed again. She settled into the hold and ran her fingers through his hair. She ran a little bit of magic down his back and it felt different when his body was still recovering from the orgasm. Softer. Easier. Less like she was touching places that weren’t meant to be touched and more like she was touching places only she was meant to touch. He closed his eyes and drifted in the mix of sensations. The smell of her skin, the sound of her breathing, the haze and the electric pleasure, the warm and the softness of the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> Officially the longest continuous smut scene I've ever written. And I have written literal orgies. *shrugs*


End file.
